On April 10, 1916, a case began in the U.S. Supreme Court that set some important limits to zoning regulations. The case, Buchanan v. Warley made it clear that local governments could not engage in racial zoning -- that is, regulating land uses based solely on the race of the property owners.
If you never heard of the case, don't be surprised. The histories of urban planning we learn in school often tell an an untarnished story of early planners bringing order to the chaos of the early 20th century. Buchanan v. Warley reminds us that while land use regulations were doing good in some cities, they were also being used to deny African-Americans in the south (and Chinese-Americans in California) full and fair rights and opportunities.
In the early 1900s, cities across the United States were using land use regulations to, among other things, prevent buildings from being so big and bulky that their residents and neighbors could not get good air circulation and light and to protect residential areas from smelly, noisy factories. At the same time, cities like Baltimore, Louisville and other places in the south created land use regulations to keep African-Americans isolated and away from White people.
In Louisville, Kentucky, where the Buchanan v. Warley story starts, the city created an ordinance that prevented African-Americans from moving into neighborhoods that were majority White, and vice-versa. The reason for this ordinance, Louisville's representatives told the Court, was to prevent the kinds of "civil disturbance" that would arise if White and Black residents were allowed to live in the same neighborhoods.
(Notice the reliance on 'protecting order' -- which is the basis for a lot of zoning regulations then and now.)
Charles Buchanan, who was White, sold a house to William Warley, an African-American. Because most of the people on the block were White, Warley could not legally occupy the house. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that while Louisville had a right to enact regulations to protect public order and provide for the general welfare, the city's ordinance violated the 14th Amendment rights to equal protection of individuals under the law.
Of course, that didn't stop cities throughout the United States from using planning -- or planners -- to promote segregation. In fact, according to historian Christopher Silver in The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities, "After 1917, cities preferred to engage professional planners to prepare racial zoning plans and to marshal the entire planning process to create the completely separate Black community." He adds that when regulations couldn't enforce segregation, "data supplied by planners made it possible to monitor and influence land use trends based on social criteria." Pioneering planners such as Robert Whitten, Harland Bartholomew, and Morris Knowles (who prepared the groundbreaking historic preservation plan for Charleston, South Carolina) all created plans for their clients that promoted and enforced apartheid, Silver says. Some of these planners defended their actions by arguing that keeping races in separate areas of a city would help everyone because single-race neighborhoods provided social stability.
Today, planners are more aware and sensitive to issues of social and economic justice. But Buchanan v. Warley reminds us that planners and the tools of planning can be used as much for denying opportunity as it can for promoting the general welfare. It's good to keep in mind when leaders of a wealthy, fast-growing municipality suddenly warm up to plans for increasing open space.
References:
C. Silver, "The Racial Origins of Zoning in America," from Manning Thomas, June and Marsha Ritzdorf eds. Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997. Chapter available at: http://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/silver%20--%20racialoriginsofzoning.pdf
Author unknown, "Buchanan v. Warley," in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchanan_v._Warley
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